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Ephesians

Music and Drunkenness, Part 2

For Part 1, click HERE . How did Paul’s earliest commentators view his juxtaposition of music and drunkenness, and did they connect it to the ancient Greek ideas of musical ethos described in Part I? Origen, one of the earliest commentators on Paul, writes about Ephesians 5:18-19: One, however, who…

by John AhernMay 17, 2018
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Ephesians

Music and Drunkenness, Part 1

Perhaps it is because I am a musician that I have always found Ephesians 5:18-19 so arbitrary. But isn’t it a little odd to contrast music and drunkenness? Perhaps it is not obvious that that is what Paul is doing; I know, for myself, that it is remarkably easy to…

by John AhernMay 15, 2018
infant-baptism
Baptism

Unequal Holiness

In 1 Corinthians 7:12-16 Paul deals with how the Corinthian Christians are supposed to be relating to unbelieving spouses. He essentially tells them, “Look, if your unbelieving spouse is willing to stay with you as a faithful Christian, don’t initiate a divorce. If he/she wants to leave you, let him/her…

by Bill SmithMay 10, 2018
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Violence

The Sword of Adam: Preterism vs. Pacifism, (Part 2)

For Part 1, click HERE . Those who focus on the supposed “pacifism” of Jesus and condemn the violence of God’s judgments throughout the Old Testament overlook the ministry of sacrificial bloodshed as an alternative to human bloodshed. The sword bearing of the sacrificial system was introduced to avoid the…

by Mike BullMay 8, 2018
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Violence

The Sword of Adam: Preterism vs. Pacifism, Part 1

How should a Christian respond to the objection that the Bible, like the Koran, is a book of violence and bloodshed? Numerous answers have been offered by well-meaning exegetes, but none of them gets to the heart of the matter: God desires to place a sword in the hands of…

by Mike BullMay 3, 2018
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Theopolis News

Alastair Roberts Appointed As Adjunct Senior Fellow

Beginning this summer, Dr. Alastair Roberts will join the Theopolis Institute as an adjunct Senior Fellow, the Institute has announced. Dr. Roberts will be a regular on the Theopolis podcast, teach intensive courses and in the Fellows Program, and help develop new programs and outlets. Roberts earned his PhD from…

by TheopolisMay 2, 2018

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Eucharistic meditation, First Sunday After Easter

Matthew 11:19: The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax-gatherers and sinners. Jesus’ teaching in this chapter is all about timing. He is the Coming One; the time of fulfillment has come, and the evidence is…

March 30, 2008

Baptismal meditation

Matthew 11:11, 13: “Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he . . . . For all the prophets and the law prophesied until…

March 30, 2008

Reverse exodus

In Hosea 13:15, the prophet says of Ephraim, “Though he flourishes among the reeds, an east wind will come, the wind of the LORD coming up from the wilderness; and his fountain will become dry and his spring will be dried up; it will plunder his treasury of every precious…

March 30, 2008
Literature

Satan’s party?

In her introduction to a new edition of Paradise Lost (Blackwell), Barbara Lewalski notes the oddness of Milton’s epic protagonists and setting. Citing the Proem to Book 9, she writes that Milton “has indeed given over the traditional epic subject, wars and empire, and the tradition epic hero as the…

March 29, 2008
Philosophy

Rorty, the disappointed realist

Putnam writes, “I agree with Rorty that the metaphysical assumption that there is a fundamental dichotomy between ‘intrinsic’ properties of things and ‘relational’ properties of things makes no sense; but that does not lead me to view the thoughts and experiences of my friends as just the intentional objects of…

March 29, 2008
Philosophy

Fact/Value Dichotomy

Hilary Putnam has recently traced the “collapse of the fact/value dichotomy.” He does not deny that there is a distinction to be made, useful in some contexts, between statements of fact and statements of value, especially of ethical value. But he argues that a dichotomy between fact and value is…

March 29, 2008

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